“I’m sure you could.” I had to resist the overwhelming urge to invite him over so that I could bloody his nose.
“Grace?” Jackson said. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” I said. I closed my eyes, trying to ward off the dizziness that enveloped me suddenly.
“You don’t sound fine,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Hey, Jackson?”
“What?”
“Don’t ever talk to me again.”
Chapter 28
Jackson
Grace didn’t talk to me for three days straight, no matter how many times I called, texted, or begged Alex to relay messages for me. I had no idea what was happening. One day we’d been friends, marching side-by-side in the women’s rights parade, discussing politics under the stars on the quad, and the next she’d shunned me to the edges of the earth. I couldn’t even find her at her regular booths in the cafeteria. Short of going to her house and sitting on the front steps—stalker status—it was impossible to reach her.
When our next game came around that week, I was more distracted than ever, but I tried everything I could to not let Coach and Tyler onto it. They would never forgive me if I screwed this up over trivial friendship problems, so I pushed Grace out of my mind on game day and did everything in my power to focus on getting through the game and preferably winning it.
The crowd was huge, and people roared their support in the stands. I had to tune them out to focus, and by halftime, my team was up by six points. Although we were winning now, there was still enough time for the other team to catch up, so I had to make sure to focus long enough for that clock to run out with our team still in the lead.
The second half of the game went downhill fast, and I could imagine it was my fault. Four minutes remained on the clock, and now our rivals were up by eight points. They were only two points behind us, and the crowd was getting restless. It would be close, and it was up to me to save this thing before it fell apart. As we took our formation on the field, I found my eyes flickering away from the face of the opposing team’s defense and towards the stand of people.
Get your head in the game, I thought. I turned back to my team, my eyes meeting Tyler’s. He nodded at me.
“Six, eight, six, Pump F-Stop on three.”
A silence had settled over the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, including me.
“Set.”
The linemen dropped into their stances, eager to go.
“Red eighty, red eighty . . . hut-hut.”
Our center player Dylan snapped the ball between his legs, passing it to me. My first intention was to run with the ball, to make it the end zone myself, but it was too late to run. I was surrounded. Catching Tyler’s eye, I wheeled around, away from the defensive players who were coming at me, and threw the ball in Tyler’s direction with all my might.
There were only a handful of times I’d ever seen Tyler fumble the ball, and this was one of them. A player on the opposing team intercepted the ball, but that was the last thing I saw before a defensive player hit me from behind.
The impact of the kid’s body against mine was the first thing I felt—like being blindsided by a freight train. There was no pain, not at first, but as my feet got knocked out from under me and I hit the ground, the agony appeared, radiating down my back and legs as if someone had pressed a red-hot iron against my skin. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the whistle blow and the referee shout, “Roughing!”
I hit the ground with a dull thud, and by now the pain had completely enveloped me. It was so great, so surreal, that every bone in my body could have been broken one-by-one and had the same effect. A great whoosh of air left my body, and I was left lying on my back trying to suck in a mouthful of breath. I felt like I was suffocating, and for a moment I was certain I was going to die. I hoped I would because the pain was growing and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath no matter how hard I tried. My lungs were useless, paralyzed.
“That was a personal foul!” Coach shouted from somewhere on the sidelines. I was still trying to make sense out of what had just happened, but even lying there in the grass in the middle of the field I could hear a shocked murmur sift through the crowd. As I slowly regained my breath, I tried to sit up—but nothing happened. My legs felt numb, the sensation an athlete gets after lying in a tub of ice water for half an hour. With a jolt of panic and horror, I realized that I couldn’t get to my feet.
“Tate?” Coach called, but I couldn’t respond to him. In mere seconds the sunlight above my head was blocked by a shadow as someone leaned over me. One person, and then more. I squinted and opened my mouth, trying to speak, but I still felt so breathless that no words come out. To the right of me, Coach was hovering over my face. He was saying my name, holding fingers up and asking me questions, but I couldn’t focus long enough to reassure him. I closed my eyes tight, hoping that this was some horrible nightmare. But when I opened my eyes again, the horrific scene was still in front of me, and I was still on my back in the middle of the field staring at the bright, glaring blue sky above me. Had I not been in such pain, I probably would have marveled at how beautiful the weather was today. Grace hated it, I’m sure. She didn’t like the sun. She liked the rain and the cool.
Grace.
I wondered again if she was here today, watching me play, even though she’d been giving me the cold shoulder for three days.
Grace.
My head was spinning, snagging my thoughts into an abyss of nonsense. I tried to say her name. I wanted to ask Coach if he could go and get her for me, but I couldn’t get a single word out. Grace would know what to do. I mean, Grace always knew what to do, even if it was just to give me a quirky smile and roll her eyes.
“Get EMS on the field now,” Coach said to someone. I think it was Tyler. He squeezed my shoulder. I felt a tingling sensation, but it was my legs that were hurting the worst. “We’re going to get you some help.”
“Grace?” I said. Somewhere in the distance, I swore I could hear her voice, but my head was fuzzy, heart beating painfully against my chest. I was being loaded up onto a stretcher, I think, and suddenly the ambulance was moving, sirens blaring. The pain was still there, intense, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
“Can you speak?” the paramedic asked me. He was hovering over my body, running his hands up and down my arms and legs like he was trying to cop a feel. I opened my mouth to say something funny to break the ice, but no words came out.
“It’s fine,” the guy said. “We’re almost there.”
I must have drifted out of consciousness for a few minutes, because when I woke again, I was in the hospital, lying on a bed in some brightly lit room. There was an oxygen mask on my face and a man in navy blue scrubs and a lab coat shining a small flashlight in my eyes.
“Jackson, my name is Dr. Andrews,” the man said. “We’re going to take care of you, okay? Just relax.”
And I didn’t seem to have a choice because before I knew what was happening, I was drifting out of consciousness again.
Chapter 29
Grace
I didn’t realize I was running towards the field until I heard Alex yelling my name somewhere back in the stands. People’s faces were a blur around me. There was a ringing in my head, blocking out the voices in my ear. A small crowd was hovering around Jackson out on the field, but before I could get to him, a burly security guy with a handheld walkie talkie and a beer belly grabbed me.
“I need to get out there,” I said breathlessly.
“No one is allowed on the field,” the security guy said. He was holding my arms, his sausage fingers digging into my skin. I didn’t even notice the unpleasant sensation of being bruised. I needed to get to him; I had to make sure he was okay.
“Jackson!” I shouted.
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you onto the field.”
“Please,” I begged. “He’s my friend. The quarterback. He’s hurt, he didn’t get up . . .
”
I’d debated heavily as to whether to go to this game, and after expressing my concerns to Gavin, I’d lost the argument. He didn’t care if I was angry at the guy, he wanted his story, and he wanted it to be good. So, after begging Alex to come and keep me company through the torture of watching a guy I now despised play football, here we were. And then, like looking at a horror movie unfold right in front of my eyes, the unthinkable happened.
The moment I’d seen Jackson hit the ground and not get up, my anger at him dissipated—at least temporarily—and I just needed to know that, if anything, he wasn’t dead. I didn’t allow myself to feel guilty that I’d been avoiding him. His nasty comment to Tyler in the library days ago was a constant reminder that I didn’t mean much to him at all, and yet I still found myself trying to get to him, fighting security so that I could see him for myself. There wasn’t a logical reason for it, no explanation that made sense as to why I gave a shit anymore, but there I was as all sense and logic crumbled beneath me.
“Give him some air,” I heard someone say out on the field. An on-site EMT was kneeling next to Jackson, running his hands up and down his arms and legs. The second medic shouldered some of the other players out of the way as he forced them to part, pushing a gurney.
“Jesus,” I whispered as the first EMT applied a C-Collar to Jackson’s neck. At this point, it was useless to fight security, and my legs went weak as all I could do was watch from the sidelines.
“Can you hear me, kid?” one of the medics asked. I couldn’t hear if Jackson answered or not from where I stood.
“Is he going to be okay?” I shouted, hoping that someone—anyone—could give me an answer. Jackson’s friend Tyler glanced briefly in my direction, but he ignored me. I knew that if there was ever a time to put my anger with them both aside, it was now. Jackson’s well-being was now more important than my desire to clunk their heads together and scream profanities.
“It will be okay, Jackson,” I said, mainly to myself, and I was a bit caught off guard when I heard him said my name. It was weak sounding and tired, but it was still my name, and even from where I was standing I heard it clearly. “Wait,” I called to the medic. “What did he say?” But they ignored me. “Jackson, I’m here! I’m right here.”
“Grace, let’s go,” Alex said. She was behind me suddenly, taking over security’s steel-grip on my arm as she pulled me away from the sidelines.
“Jackson!”
“Come with me; we’ll meet them at the hospital,” Alex said. I let her drag me away from the field of onlookers and towards the parking lot to where her car was parked and waiting. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t will myself to take a deep breath and settle down. He wasn’t going to die, was he? No way, he was still alive, he’d just taken a harder than usual hit. He’d had the breath knocked out of him, that was all.
“He’ll be okay, right?” I asked Alex as she backed out of the parking lot. She looked over at me with an expression I figured was supposed to be reassuring, but did nothing to soothe my nerves.
“I don’t know,” she said, and reached over and squeezed my hand.
Since we weren’t family, the hospital wouldn’t release Jackson’s medical status to us, but the kind nurse in the Winnie the Pooh scrubs did assure me that he was, at least, out of surgery and alive.
“Can I see him?” I asked. Alex was standing behind me looking around the ER waiting room awkwardly as if waiting to catch some strange, incurable disease.
“I’m sorry, visiting hours are over, and your friend is still in recovery,” the nurse said. “You can try back tomorrow.”
“How long will he be here?” Alex asked. She stepped up beside me, finally succumbing to the fact that nobody here had any interest in shanking her. At least, not today.
“That’s undetermined. Depending on his recovery from surgery, it could be a few days to a few weeks.” Behind us, the ER doors opened, and a small group of people came in behind us. I recognized Jackson’s coach and his best friend, Tyler. They didn’t even glance my way as they made their way up to the reception desk, practically avoiding my existence.
“Grace, we should go,” Alex murmured. She put a hand on my arm, but I hesitated.
“Are you family?” the nurse asked when I heard them inquire about Jackson.
“His dad and mom should be called,” I said, stepping back up beside Tyler. “They live a few minutes out of the city.” Tyler looked at me like I’d just dug myself out from a pile of cow shit.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Coach already called them. They won’t come.”
“What?” I stared at Tyler, slack-jawed. “Why not?”
“My guess is because his dad saw the charming photo of his quarterback son marching in the lesbian parade last weekend,” Tyler said. “He’ll have you to thank when he wakes up and his parents aren’t here to see him.”
“Fuck you, Tyler,” Alex said. She stepped up beside him, looking about ready to bust up his face.
“We can’t release information unless it’s to family,” the nurse said before anyone else could speak. She seemed to be getting impatient now with the pestering, particularly as it was becoming clear that none of us had a right to his medical information, putting us on the path to wasting her precious time.
“Come on, Grace,” Alex said again. “He’ll be okay.”
“No.” I pulled my hand away from hers and looked at Tyler, to the coach, and back to Alex. “I’m staying here until he wakes up.”
“There’s no need to do that,” Tyler said. He was barely looking at me now, as though fearing he would burst into flame if he stared too long into my dark, dead, virgin soul.
“Are you going to stay then?” I asked him.
“I can’t. I have things to do.”
“Because why wouldn’t you,” I said. “Jackson is, after all, just your best friend.” Before Tyler could respond with some asshat comment, Alex grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Why is it so important to you to stay here for some loser guy who had nothing but mean things to say about you?”
I hesitated because I wasn’t sure I even had that answer for myself. I’d told Alex what I’d overheard in the library between Jackson and Tyler because let’s face it ... I told Alex everything. And after a string of profanities that would have left a sailor flushing with embarrassment, she’d only agreed to go to today’s game with me because I still had to report on it, and I couldn’t tolerate seeing Jackson’s face alone. And now, here we were, waiting in the Emergency Room to hear if the guy who was only pretending to be my friend would even be okay.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know why I need to stay, Alex, but I do. Because as shitty as Jackson Tate is, I seem to be all he has right now.” Her hand dropped from my arm, brow furrowed. I could tell she understood what I was saying, even if she didn’t like it. Like any good friend, she only wanted to protect me from getting hurt again, but this decision was mine and mine alone.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asked. To the side of us, the few players on Jackson’s team along with Tyler and their coach turned to leave. Tyler was staring at me as he went, but he said nothing. None of them did. I figured this wasn’t the right time to grab a waiting room chair and bring it down over his head, so I focused my attention on Alex.
“No, it’s alright,” I said. “I need to do this for me.”
Chapter 30
Jackson
When I awoke from my varying lack of consciousness, I found myself yet again in a hospital bed. Only this time the room was dimly lit and no awkward strangers were feeling me up or shining lights in my eyes. I was supported by a pillow and had a blanket over my lap. An IV was hooked up to my arm pumping something into me, and everything—I mean everything—hurt. As I came to and looked around, a cheery, frizzy-haired nurse came into the room. She smiled when she saw me awake.
“Good to see those eyes open,” she said. “
How are you feeling?”
“Like somebody related to the Hulk blindsided me like a truck,” I said, which was as close to the truth as I could remember. The nurse laughed.
“Sense of humor is still intact. Good sign. So, you remember what happened?”
“Unfortunately. Most of it, anyway.”
“Well, you got out of surgery last night,” the nurse said. “Everything went well, but Dr. Andrews should tell you more.”
“What did I have surgery for?” I asked, but I was damn hesitant to hear the answer.
“It’s a herniated disk,” the nurse said. “Dr. Andrews will be in soon to explain everything to you. Until then, you have a visitor. Grace Harrison is here; she’d like to see you.”
Despite everything that was happening right now, especially the fact I was lying in a hospital bed after surgery, I heard Grace’s name and something in my chest lifted. Suddenly, I could breathe easy again, but I was in a bit of shock. The three days of an icy-cold shoulder had made it clear to me that I wasn’t Grace’s favorite person in the whole world, so I was surprised to hear that she was there.
“She’s here?” I asked, wondering if the nurse was screwing with me.
“Honey, she never left,” the nurse said, and hurried out to find her. A few minutes later she returned with Grace in tow, and for a blinding moment, I was completely and emotionally overwhelmed she was there. Somehow, despite her anger, she was smiling at me, and that reassuring grin lit up the room as it got ready to convince me that everything was okay and right in the world.
“So, you survived,” she said, sitting down on the chair next to my bed. She looked tired; it was the first thing I noticed. Exhausted like she’d been awake all-night long. The rims below her eyes appeared dark with a lack of sleep, and her brown hair was pulled back carelessly into something that resembled a bun. She was bundled in a sweatshirt, and she looked like she hadn’t eaten well for a few days.
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